


Say A Little Prayer

by Tyellas



Series: Lab T-4 [20]
Category: The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: 'content' in both senses of the word, Book Spoilers, Gen, GiveElaineABreak2018, Happy Ending, Kids, Religious Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 08:39:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14257116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: A glimpse of Elaine’s future – and her gratitude to whatever was out there on one rainy Baltimore night.





	Say A Little Prayer

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, writing a prequel for another story...after that story is finished. Oh well! A more cheerful moment than most of [The Man of the Future](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13877352) because it's Elaine's POV, at a happy moment for her.

Elaine Strickland strode along the dune pathway, heart fluttering with anticipation. This time tomorrow, she wouldn’t be Mrs. Strickland anymore. She’d have a new spouse, a new name. For the moment, she’d slipped away barefoot, escaping from her fiancé’s folks and their family’s beach house just north of Cape Cod. She was stealing this chance to say goodbye to her old self.

The people back in the house all followed her fiancé’s lead and called her Lane. Lane was a breezy figure in jeans and a Breton shirt, discussing children with one person, business with the next, art with a third. A capable, independent woman. Lane fit her far better than Lainie, the girlish nickname her dead husband, Richard, had kept using, long after she’d outgrown it. Tomorrow’s new name, she felt, would set the seal on all her growth and change.

Looking down towards the beach, Elaine saw her daughter. At thirteen, Tammy had stretched out like a young willow tree, going from a child to an athletic girl overnight. She was half-prancing along in her own rolled-up jeans and a button-down boys’ shirt. In one hand, she held a stick, obviously her sword, fencing against unseen foes.

Elaine smiled. Her fiancé had taken her daughter’s prickly, dreamy measure and offered her a trilogy of fantastical British books. Tammy had been blissfully obsessed ever since. “At that age, sometimes you need to escape,” he’d said. Elaine had squeezed his hand, grateful. You needed to escape at all ages.  Elaine herself had needed to, three years ago - until her then-husband had died. Under circumstances that, despite Elaine herself being interrogated by military police for a week, had never really been explained to her.

When Elaine thought of Tammy’s actual father dealing with today’s thirteen-year-old Tammy, she shuddered. Tammy would’ve been forced back into skirts and the kitchen. Her whip-sharp intelligence, up against Richard’s ponderous reasoning, would have been a goad for constant conflict. Whether she’d rebelled or obeyed, Tammy would have been hurt.

Tammy had seen her mother. Elaine waved. Her daughter loped up the dunes to meet her. “Enjoying a walk, darling?” she asked. It was safe on the beach, but the water had a deep, fierce undertow. “Where’s your brother?”

Tammy feinted at a sand hummock. “Being gross again.”

Elaine’s heart sank, but she kept her voice light. “That’s just boys, dear.”

Tammy shrugged. “They’re playing with crabs on the beach.”

“Are they…I might head down…” Elaine headed beachwards. Tammy pirouetted off to smite down a patch of beach grass.

Timmy had been back and forth since his father’s death. He was diligent in some classes, poor in others; often eerily quiet or truculent, fighting a good deal. His father would have approved of all of this. Looking back, remembering, Elaine didn’t want to think what else his father might have encouraged.

On the beach, Timmy wasn’t alone. He and another eleven-year-old were at the water’s edge. The other child, Sarah, would become his stepsister tomorrow. They sure looked cute together: both rounded by a peck of puppy fat, dark hair ruffled by the sea breeze, a pair of Little Rascals. If only they weren’t hovering over an icky crawler the size of a dinner plate.

It wasn’t a crab, more a giant bug, with a foot-long stinger for a tail. Elaine watched them flip the huge thing over with a piece of driftwood. When they did, countless pincers reached up from its carapace. Her stomach curdled. Timmy lifted his foot to stomp on it and Elaine didn’t know _what_ to do. The thing was horrible – but that was cruel –

The girl stopped him.   

Elaine swayed with relief. It was one more reminder that she was part of the rest of humanity, now. She didn’t have to do everything alone. Richard had isolated her so much: first with him, then on her own, going away on those Army missions. He’d come home so hard and cold she’d closed herself off from other people in shame. As if she’d been the problem, not him. Elaine dashed over before that thing could sting the children.

“Timmy, what - what is that?” The girl was turning the monstrosity back over like it was nothing.

Timmy said, breezily, “It’s a horseshoe crab, Mom. Geez, everyone knows that.”

Sarah chirped, all enthusiasm, “Their blood is blue! They’ve been around for _millions_ of years, Mrs. Strickland!”

Elaine flinched. “Sarah – since I’ll be marrying your father tomorrow – would you like to call me Mom?”

The child froze, with the set paleness Timmy had worn for so long after his father died. This child’s mother had died, too. It was too soon. 

“How about Lane? Or Elaine?” Some people might say it was disrespectful, letting a child call an adult by a first name. Elaine was delighted to not care about that.

“I like Elaine. It sounds like a princess.” Sarah toed the sand and gave it a try. “Elaine…can I come see you put your wedding dress on tomorrow?”

Elaine beamed. “Of course! I’ll absolutely need your help.”

In the distance, a heavy brass bell jangled. “Dinner!” Sarah tumbled away, falling in behind Tammy.

Timmy asked, “Do I have to call Sarah’s dad Dad? ‘Cause…’cause he’s not my dad.” He looked down to mumble, “I’ll do what he says. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“Oh, darling. He’s a good man. He listens. You don’t have to worry.” Where, oh where did that come from? She hadn’t ever told Timmy what his father had done to her. She never would. It was the last thing she’d do for Richard Strickland, letting his son think well of him. She felt all right with that after seeing Timmy at his best just now: polite, protective, learning he could be curious without being cruel.

From the top of the sands, Sarah called out. Timmy chugged up the dunes. Elaine wished, selfishly, she could keep the children just as they were. Tammy at her particularly pure moment of youth, flourishing as a tomboy. Timmy, her baby boy, stopping to think, opening up again. This third child, kind even to frightening things, like icky crawlers or a new stepmother. A good foundation for a new family.

She wanted to say, to all three of them, _you don’t have to worry ever again_. But the freckles were fading off Timmy’s cheeks, the russet darkening out of his hair. He’d be shooting up in height soon himself. There was a new war overseas, in Vietnam this time. No, she wouldn’t take Timmy’s admiration of his now-dead father away  – but she prayed it wouldn’t be the death of him, too.

For all her changes, Elaine’s belief in God and his angels was a luminous constant in her life. She bowed her head for a moment of real prayer. It felt right in this place, cupped between the dunes and the soft crashes of the waves, the lights of the little harbor towns shining across the bay.

Elaine knew angels listened to your prayers when it really mattered. Why, her fleeing from Richard after he’d shattered at last, striking out at her, could have gone so badly. She’d prayed that night, in the dark and the rain. She’d feared a horrid divorce, going broke in court. Her babies torn between two parents – or taken from her entirely after Richard’s irrational, crude accusations. If Richard had let her run but refused a divorce, she wouldn’t have been able to marry again. Worst of all had been the fear that her husband would come back in time to stop her. That they’d be trapped with him.

It had been a terrible shock when Richard had died that very night. But that had bestowed what she’d prayed for: peace and freedom, for her and her children. A world where she could love.

“Thank you,” Elaine whispered. She sent that out to the angel who’d answered that night, that force of life and death in the Baltimore rain. Years ago and far away, now. But maybe the evening tide, or the patient crawler on the beach, with its millions of years, could carry her gratitude to it.

Timmy had doubled back, impatient. “Moooom! Come on! Sarah said they made blueberry pie ‘cause you like it!”

Elaine laughed and went to join her son, her daughters, her new people.


End file.
